ENTITY IDENTITY / 01
Compare the names used at each stage of the order.
The English name is an alias until its relationship is recorded
Copy the English name exactly. Save the URL, marketplace listing, quotation or contact channel where you found it. The name may be a brand or sales label. A similar-looking Chinese name does not establish which entity is behind it.
Ask the supplier to state the exact Chinese legal entity and Unified Social Credit Code that relate to the proposed transaction. Keep that statement, the channel and the date as a separate evidence line.
Use the Chinese legal entity and USCC as the official-record anchor
Search the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System by the exact Chinese name or Unified Social Credit Code.
SAMR’s Unified Social Credit Code measures have been in force since 1 February 2026. Order No. 112 defines the code as a national, unique and life-long identifier. It must appear on the business licence under a “one licence, one code” rule.
Save the displayed legal name, code, status, source URL and query date. An undated screenshot leaves you without the time of the check.
A supplier’s licence image gives you a code to look up; it does not replace a current record. Follow the company-registration search steps →
In the 8 August 2026 census of 264 recognised specialist manufacturers, 53.4% had at least one former legal name on record and 22.7% had two or more. Those sample counts do not tell you whether your supplier’s invoice uses an old name. Check the code and current name together.
Read the code’s five parts
The State Council scheme defines 18 characters in five parts.
- 1: registration management department.
- 2: institution category.
- 3–8: the registering authority’s administrative division.
- 9–17: subject identifier.
- 18: check character.
The same scheme lists the category values used by the market-regulation authorities: 1 for an enterprise, 2 for a sole trader and 3 for a farmers’ specialised cooperative.
Characters 3–8 identify the authority that registered the entity, not where it operates. Check a claimed factory address separately →
The final character is a check character, included in the scheme to detect errors. A passing result shows that the 18-character string is internally consistent with the coding rule. It does not prove error-free transcription, that the organization exists, that it remains registered or that it has any relationship to the person quoting it.
Forging, fraudulently using, transferring or renting out a code can attract a fine of up to RMB 30,000, or RMB 30,000 to 100,000 in serious cases. Check a quoted code against the record.
USCI and USCC refer to the same 18-character code. The mandatory coding standard is GB 32100-2015. Its official English title is The coding rule of the unified social credit identifier for legal entities and other organizations.
A freight forwarder, bank or customs broker may ask for a USCI number or USCI code. They mean that same code. There is no separate number to look up.
The code follows the entity; the names do not
The State Council scheme keeps the code with the entity throughout its life. Moving, changing the legal representative or changing the business scope leaves the code unchanged. Order No. 112 also preserves it in two conversions: a sole trader becomes an enterprise, or a sole proprietorship becomes a company or partnership.
A new legal entity receives a new code. The old code is never reissued; the measures require code data to remain permanently available for traceable queries.
Use the code to compare records across dates. A changed sales name does not tell you whether the legal entity changed. Ask for the current Chinese name and code, record when you received them, then check the record instead of assuming continuity.
EVIDENCE CHAIN / 02
Compare the four names on your documents.
| Evidence line | Record the dated fact | Question before you continue | It does not establish |
|---|---|---|---|
| English sales or storefront name | Exact label, source URL or channel, and capture date | Which Chinese legal entity does the supplier say it represents for this deal? | Registry identity, authority or account ownership |
| Chinese legal name and Unified Social Credit Code | Exact official-record result, source URL and query date | Does the proposed contract seller use this entity, or is a relationship explained? | Factory capability, performance or payment safety |
| Contract and invoice seller | Exact seller name, jurisdiction, issue date and document version | How does it relate to the official-record entity and the sales label? | Authority to sign, product compliance or enforceability |
| Bank beneficiary | Exact beneficiary name, bank details, change notice and approval record | Is any difference documented and checked through an independently verified channel? | Account ownership, transaction safety or delivery |
A chain can make the next question more precise. It does not establish payment safety, account ownership, authority, capacity, product compliance or contract enforceability. Use the bank-beneficiary checklist for the separate payment-document comparison →
Ask for an explanation of a name difference
A difference is an unresolved evidence question, not proof of fraud. Re-query the code, preserve the original document and ask for a written relationship explanation through an independently verified contact channel. Do not force a close-looking English label, Chinese name or beneficiary into a match because the commercial story sounds plausible.
What an English-name search returns
Reverse-looking up the 106 Chinese manufacturers on the NHTSA vehicle-manufacturer list produced 84 candidate records on 18 August 2026.
| Matched via | Records |
|---|---|
| An English name recorded against the entity | 83 |
| Other company information | 1 |
A public-data check on the same question, run on 6 September 2026. The measurement above needs the Chinese registry. This one needs nothing but a browser. Every registrant in the US vehicle regulator's own roster carries a self-reported English name, and 2,633 of them give China as their country. After normalising case, punctuation and the usual company suffixes, 8 of the 2,633 (0.3%) share a name with another registrant, in four pairs. Exact English-name duplicates inside a curated roster are rare.
One roster cannot say whether that rate describes Chinese company names or the way a single regulator collects them. So we ran the same normalisation over a second US register on 7 September 2026. The openFDA device registration listing holds 5,012 Chinese establishments. They file their own English names through a process unrelated to the vehicle roster. Those 5,012 normalise to 4,993 distinct names. So at least 19 of them (0.4%) share a name with another establishment. Two registers, two collection processes, roughly one in 250 either way.
The FDA figure is a floor. The public aggregation returns names and registration numbers separately, never paired, so it can show that collisions exist without listing them. The establishment total is its own control. This route reached 5,012, the same number the bulk-export census reached by a different path. The full file is here, with the method and its limits.
Read that result the right way. It does not say English names are safe to rely on. The ambiguity that costs a buyer money is a different one. It is the gap between the English name a supplier gives you and the Chinese registered name on the official record. That gap is what the table above measures, and it stays wide. The collision figure is also a lower bound. A one-letter difference counts as two names here. The roster also holds self-reported English names, which registry filings do not use. Data: the full name-collision file.
These match labels do not reveal the provider’s algorithm or explain why 45 inputs returned no candidate. A missing result does not prove a company is absent from the register.
Treat the result as a lead to check. An English name on file may be an old name or brand. Compare the Chinese legal name and code with your deal documents.
Keep the full Chinese name when searching
On 22 August 2026, searches used three forms of the Chinese names for a 45-manufacturer sample. The eligible counts differ by form, as shown below. Finding one candidate is a starting point for checking the record and deal documents.
| Spelling | Resolved to exactly one | Median returned |
|---|---|---|
| Full registered name | 22 of 45 | 2 |
| Region prefix dropped | 5 of 41 | 22 |
| Distinctive core only | 4 of 44 | 32 |
The administrative-region prefix carries almost all of the disambiguating power. Dropping the city or province takes the median candidate set from 2 to 22, roughly elevenfold. That is why a chain that ends at “the distinctive part matches” has not ended at all.
Read the first row honestly too: even the full registered name resolved to exactly one company in fewer than half the cases. Part of that is the search behaving as a search and not an exact-match lookup. Treat it as an upper bound on what a name alone settles, and treat the credit code as the only field in this chain that is unique by construction.
We ran the same 130 spellings again on 6 September 2026. All three rows came back identical. What moved was the register underneath: 17 of the 130 spellings returned more companies than in August, and none returned fewer. A shortened name gets less precise as time passes, never more.
Method and limitations
The official sources below cover search inputs, code structure, stability and misuse. Each carries its check date.
This guide does not assess your supplier or validate a code. A structurally well-formed code is not a verified organization. For your order, use current records and seek legal advice where needed.
PRIMARY SOURCES / 03
Official sources used for this note
Each source carries the date we last opened it. Re-open the live official record for the entity and date you are assessing.
- National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity SystemOfficial market-entity search by Chinese name, Unified Social Credit Code or registration number. Checked 2 August 2026.
- GSXT — Official system helpOfficial description of the public system’s company-information search functions. Checked 2 August 2026.
- State Council — scheme establishing the Unified Social Credit Code (Guo Fa [2015] No. 33)Sets the 18-character length, the five parts, the market-regulation category values, and the uniqueness and stability rules. Checked 5 August 2026.
- GB 32100-2015: unified social credit identifier coding ruleMandatory national standard. The official platform lists it as current and gives its English title. Checked 5 September 2026.
- SAMR Order No. 112 — Unified Social Credit Code administration measuresIn force 1 February 2026. One code per organization for life, printed on the business licence, retained permanently, with penalties for forging or misusing a code. Checked 5 September 2026.